1 March 2007 Development and transfer of technology under the Convention: technology information and networking technology centres Iulian Florin Vladu Adaptation, Technology and Science Technology Sub-programme UNFCCC Bonn, Germany

Iulian Florin VLADU – Adaptation, Technology and Science2 This presentation will cover: o Environmentally sound technologies o Development and transfer of technologies under the Convention o Technology information  Mandates  Work done  Gaps and barriers  Networking technology centres  Recommendations for future work  EGTT recommendations on networking o Relevant findings of the synthesis report of technology needs of non-Annex I Parties

Iulian Florin VLADU – Adaptation, Technology and Science3 Environmentally sound technologies (1) o Development, deployment, diffusion and transfer of a wide range of technologies is essential to achieve the deep cuts in GHG emissions that are needed to combat climate change and to enable people and societies to adapt to changes that may occur o Just as the rise in the greenhouse gas emissions has been, to some extent, the product of “old” technologies –from coal fired power plants to internal combustion engines– so reduction in emissions will rely on the development of new and more efficient technologies that could form the basis of less carbon intensive economies without compromising the economic growth

Iulian Florin VLADU – Adaptation, Technology and Science4 Environmentally sound technologies (2) o IPCC - no single technology option will provide all of the emission reductions needed to achieve stabilization, but a portfolio of mitigation technologies and measures will be needed. Some of these technologies have significant potential in the short- term, such as energy efficiency, renewable energy technologies and reducing gas flaring. Others, such as carbon capture and storage (CCS) and fusion, are expected to contribute to addressing the climate change issue in the long-term o IPCC - known technological options could achieve a broad range of atmospheric stabilization levels but implementation would require socio-economic and institutional changes

Iulian Florin VLADU – Adaptation, Technology and Science5 Environmentally sound technologies (3) o Technologies for the mitigation of, and adaptation to, climate change are equally important and both hard technologies (e.g. equipment, machinery, tools) and soft technologies (e.g. skills, knowledge, expertise, know-how and “know-why) are being considered. o IEA provided recently a comprehensive and detailed analysis of the key energy technologies of the next 50 years - global CO 2 emissions could be returned to current levels by 2050 and that the growth of oil demand could be cut in half.  Energy efficiency is of paramount importance in achieving these results.  Decarbonising power generation through CCS, renewable, and, in those countries where it is accepted, nuclear, will be essential.

Iulian Florin VLADU – Adaptation, Technology and Science6 Provisions of the Convention on technology (1) Article 4 - Commitments o Article “The developed countries and other developed countries in Annex II shall take all practicable steps to promote, facilitate and finance, as appropriate, the transfer of or access to environmentally sound technologies and know how to other Parties, particularly developing country Parties, to enable them to implement the provisions of the Convention.” o Article “The extent to which developing country Parties will effectively implement their commitments under the Convention will depend on the effective implementation by developed country Parties of their commitments related to financial resources and transfer of technology…”

Iulian Florin VLADU – Adaptation, Technology and Science7 Provisions of the Convention on technology (2) o Article All Parties, taking into account their common but differentiated responsibilities and their specific national and regional development priorities, objectives and circumstances, shall:  ….  (c) Promote and cooperate in the development, application and diffusion, including transfer, of technologies, practices and processes that control, reduce or prevent anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases not controlled by the Montreal Protocol in all relevant sectors, including the energy, transport, industry, agriculture, forestry and waste management sectors;

Iulian Florin VLADU – Adaptation, Technology and Science8 Major milestones

Iulian Florin VLADU – Adaptation, Technology and Science9 Access to technology information (1) o Has been recognized since the Agenda 21, Chapter 34 - activities - “Development of international information networks which link national, subregional, regional and international systems” o Existing national, subregional, regional and international information systems should be developed and linked through regional clearing-houses covering broad-based sectors of the economy such as agriculture, industry and energy. Such a network might, inter alia, include national, subregional and regional patent offices that are equipped to produce reports on state-of-the-art technology. The clearing-house networks would disseminate information on available technologies, their sources, their environmental risks, and the broad terms under which they may be acquired. They would operate on an information-demand basis and focus on the information needs of the end-users. They would take into account the positive roles and contributions of international, regional and subregional organizations, business communities, trade associations, non-governmental organizations, national Governments, and newly established or strengthened national networks.

Iulian Florin VLADU – Adaptation, Technology and Science10 Access to technology information (2) o The international and regional clearing-houses would take the initiative, where necessary, in helping users to identify their needs and in disseminating information that meets those needs, including the use of existing news, public information, and communication systems. The disseminated information would highlight and detail concrete cases where ESTs were successfully developed and implemented. In order to be effective, the clearing- houses need to provide not only information, but also referrals to other services, including sources of advice, training, technologies and technology assessment. The clearing-houses would thus facilitate the establishment of joint ventures and partnerships of various kinds. o An inventory of existing and international or regional clearing-houses or information exchange systems should be undertaken by the relevant United Nations bodies. The existing structure should be strengthened and improved when necessary. Additional information systems should be developed, if necessary, in order to fill identified gaps in this international network.

Iulian Florin VLADU – Adaptation, Technology and Science11 Technology information | Mandates (1) o 13/CP.1 - "prepare an inventory and assessment of environmentally sound and economically viable technologies and know-how conducive to mitigating and adapting to climate change. This inventory should also include an elaboration of the terms under which transfers of such technologies and know-how could take place“ o 7/CP.2 - “initiate action, including consultations with Parties and relevant international organizations, inter alia, taking into account the ongoing work of the Climate Technology Initiative, to identify existing technology information activities and needs, with a view to developing options for building on existing specialized information centres and networks to provide fast one-stop databases relating to state-of-the-art, environmentally sound and economically feasible technology and know-how in a manner that would be readily accessible to developing countries. The options should consider the need and resources required for improving existing, and setting up additional, technology information centres and networks”

Iulian Florin VLADU – Adaptation, Technology and Science12 Technology information | Mandates (2) o 9/CP.3 – consult with the GEF and other relevant international organizations, “on their capabilities and abilities to support the work of (an) international technology information centre(s), as well as national and regional centres, and to enhance the support for national and regional centres..” o 4/CP.4 – consultative process

Iulian Florin VLADU – Adaptation, Technology and Science13 Technology information | Mandates (3) o 4/CP.7 – adopts the technology transfer framework, with a theme on technology information  Purpose: to establish an efficient information system in support of technology transfer and to improve the generation and flow of, access to and quality of technical, economic, environmental and regulatory information relating to the development and transfer of ESTs under the Convention  To accelerate its work on the development of a technology transfer information clearing house by coordinating with Parties and relevant United Nations agencies and other international organizations and institutions, and developing options for implementation, in particular, networking of an international technology information clearing house under the Convention, and enhancement of technology information centres and networks.

Iulian Florin VLADU – Adaptation, Technology and Science14 Technology information | Mandates (4) o SBSTA 20, requested the secretariat to continue its work on maintaining and improving TT:CLEAR, taking into account the report on the survey on the effectiveness of the use of the system and the recommendation of the EGTT, including by enhancing networking between national and regional centres working on the dissemination of technology information, and by encouraging the use of TT:CLEAR o 6/CP.10 - encouraged the secretariat to continue its work on a pilot project on networking between TT:CLEAR and national and regional technology information centres that would provide Parties with a clear understanding of the technical feasibility and cost implications of the strengthening of technology centres in developing countries

Iulian Florin VLADU – Adaptation, Technology and Science15 Technology information | Work done (1) o Conducted a pilot project on the establishment of a technology information system, later renamed the technology information clearing house, in September During the testing period only registered users could access TT:CLEAR. o Organized an expert workshop in Beijing, China, in 2002, on technology information in order to review the feedback from Parties on testing TT:CLEAR, and to further define user needs for information, criteria for information quality control, technical specifications of the system and submissions from Parties. o Compiled feedback and guidance for improving the system (e.g. submissions from Parties, recommendations of the workshop on technology information, and the testing of TT:CLEAR) o Conducted a survey to assess the effectiveness of the use of TT:CLEAR, including identification of users’ needs for information on climate friendly technologies, and of information gaps and ways to bridge them

Iulian Florin VLADU – Adaptation, Technology and Science16 Technology information | Work done (2) o The testing of the system was completed by June 2003 and the system was opened to public access o TT:CLEAR acts as a gateway to technology information that enables users, including practitioners and private sector users, to :  Find information on technology transfer projects and programmes;  Case studies of successful technology transfer;  ESTs and sources of know-how;  Organizations and experts;  Methods, models, and tools to assess mitigation and adaptation options and strategies;  Relevant Internet sites for technology transfer; and  Ongoing work of the Parties and the EGTT, relating to issues under negotiation, documents and meetings, and the implementation of the technology framework.

Iulian Florin VLADU – Adaptation, Technology and Science17 Technology information | Gasps and barriers (1) o The survey identified barriers that need to be addressed to increase the use of the clearing house by users in developing countries and by technology practitioners o The recommendations of the survey are being pursued, including extending the pilot network of regional/national technology centres and translating information on TT:CLEAR into other languages. Key areas that could be addressed in the future include: increasing the availability of data; sustaining commitment for participation in the network of technology centres; and providing adequate and predictable resources for this activity o The provision of information on TT:CLEAR and within the network of technology centres, including at local and regional levels, could be improved by involving the private sector more closely in these activities to enhance access to information on technologies

Iulian Florin VLADU – Adaptation, Technology and Science18 Technology information | Gasps and barriers (2) o A better integration of TT:CEAR with other information clearing houses, better networking with existing activities, and a closer working relationship between TT:CLEAR and information providers, would enhance the access to technology information o TT:CLEAR and the network of technology centres could continue to build on inventories of mitigation technologies and technologies for adaptation within the existing clearing-house mechanisms and could draw on experiences from the Convention on Biological Diversity Clearing House Mechanism o Lack of awareness about TT:CLEAR and about the technology information network. To address this barrier, work on the outreach aspects of TT:CLEAR could be strengthened, through the preparation and distribution of additional outreach materials that would be able to address the needs of a broader set of target audiences or users. There may also be a need to improve the content of, and access to, TT:CLEAR in order to attract more users

Iulian Florin VLADU – Adaptation, Technology and Science19 Networking technology centres | Structure o The transfer of technologies is a process which involves governments, financial institutions, private companies, IGOs, NGOs and knowledge institutions o Considerable institutional capacity to provide technology information already exists. Much of this capacity is distributed among relevant United Nations organizations and specialized agencies, and the national and regional technology centres. Enhancing coordination among these organizations by involving them in a network would deliver considerable benefits

Iulian Florin VLADU – Adaptation, Technology and Science20 Networking technology centres | Principles o Participation is voluntary - the participants would become nodes within the network and share information specific to their area of expertise. o All nodes would have similar roles in the network - they would retain ownership and full control over their information. When displaying information received from other nodes, proper disclaimers and credits would be given to users o Sharing and exchanging of information over the network would be done in “real time” over the Internet - efforts would be made to increase visits to each node o Users would be able to access information from, and provide feedback to any node in the network. Similar concepts will be used as much as possible to develop intuitive users’ interfaces capable of identifying the needs and determining the profile of each user, so that the network could disseminate tailored information on any node (!) o An important feature of the network would be its ability to tap into information contained in national and international patent databases (!)

Iulian Florin VLADU – Adaptation, Technology and Science21 Networking technology centres | Options o Maintaining links to external sources of data and information - establish and maintain, on each node, a database of links (hyperlinks) to relevant international sources of information available on the other nodes and elsewhere on the Internet o Specialized search engines and data interfaces - search engine that searches in real time a limited number of external data sources over the Internet, harvests data from those sources and presents consolidated results to use o Web services

Iulian Florin VLADU – Adaptation, Technology and Science22 Networking technology centres | Web services o Advantages: independence of modification on external web sites, standard data exchange protocol, data format and service description, independence of software platforms and programming language, service discovery protocols and inventories of services and providers

Iulian Florin VLADU – Adaptation, Technology and Science23 Networking technology centres | Limitations o Data accessibility: only limited amounts of data are available online free of charge. Some members of the network may have agreements to access the full set of the data, but they would not be allowed to make the data available to third parties o Data quality: no guarantee regarding the quality of the data, but a good selection of the centres and web portals may be sufficient. In any case, proper disclaimers and credits should be given to the users when they access data external to the node o Data coverage: Limited and/or different geographical and temporal coverage of the data is a common problem. Different assumptions may also be used to derive the data, which makes them difficult to combine or compare. Agreement(s) should be reached on, for example, a core set of data to describe an international cooperation project o Data classification: The classifications used by different data providers are often inconsistent

Iulian Florin VLADU – Adaptation, Technology and Science24 Networking technology centres | Examples

Iulian Florin VLADU – Adaptation, Technology and Science25 Networking technology centres | Examples

Iulian Florin VLADU – Adaptation, Technology and Science26 Networking technology centres | Expanding to developing countries o Task 1: Extend the pilot network to cover three selected national/regional technology information centres in developing countries (Africa - Tunisia, Latin America and the Caribbean - Belize, and Asia and the Pacific - China) o Task 2: Exchange views among centres on technical, organizational and financial aspects relating to the networking technology information centres o Task 3: Assess the outcomes of the pilot project in terms of technical feasibility and cost implications of the networking technology centres in developing countries and report on findings to SBSTA at its consequent sessions.

Iulian Florin VLADU – Adaptation, Technology and Science27 Networking technology centres | Initial lessons learned (1) o Web services are a good option for establishing an information sharing network. This technology is mature and flexible and permits an effective exchange of information over the Internet with acceptable delays for search engines and other applications. Nevertheless, the response time should be tested with a node in a developing country where the Internet bandwidth is smaller o Web services are relatively easy to develop and only modest financial resources are needed to implement a network of technology centres using them. Intuitive user’s interfaces can be developed to allow advanced searches between the participating nodes in the network o Web services and clients should be developed by each node. Close cooperation is needed between the nodes in the development phase to fine tune the services according to different needs

Iulian Florin VLADU – Adaptation, Technology and Science28 Networking technology centres | Initial lessons learned (2) o It is expected that the network would increase the utilization in each node. However, this may not always be the case and a mechanism is needed to prevent nodes from copying information from other nodes and making it available directly to their users and to ensure that proper credits to the node providing the information are given to users o Exchanging information between the centres could contribute to harmonization of templates used for projects and expert databases, helps develop a mechanism to share this type of information and ensures an appropriate quality control system. It could also harmonize the terminology used. The proposed functional integration for matchmaking, may increase funding to developing countries for technology transfer projects and increase the use of local project developers and local experts. A network may also allow for a better tracking of successful projects and their contribution to mitigation of, and adaptation to, climate change.

Iulian Florin VLADU – Adaptation, Technology and Science29 What are the priority technology needs? o Synthesis of technology needs assessments (TNAs) – FCCC/SBSTA/2006/INF.1:  Highlights priority technology needs to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and facilitate adaptation to the adverse impacts of climate change based on information contained in 23 TNAs and 25 initial national communications submitted by non- Annex I Parties  Draws attention to specific barriers to technology transfer and suggests measures to address them, including through capacity-building  Highlights ways used to involve stakeholders in a consultative process to conduct TNAs, including the methodologies and criteria used to prioritize technology needs

Iulian Florin VLADU – Adaptation, Technology and Science30 Technology information | Recommendations of future actions (1) o Maintain, update and further develop TT:CLEAR taking into account relevant conclusions of the SBSTA at its twentieth session and client surveys; o Enhance outreach activities by the secretariat to increase the numbers of users of TT:CLEAR from developing country Parties; o Share experiences and lessons learned among national and regional experts participating in the pilot project on TT:CLEAR networking through the organization of expert meetings; o Use TT:CLEAR and the network of technology centres developed through the current pilot programme to share technical information on technologies for adaptation and the associated capacity-building to meet the needs for technology information of vulnerable communities and countries

Iulian Florin VLADU – Adaptation, Technology and Science31 Technology information | Recommendations of future actions (1) o Encourage the link between TT:CLEAR and technical information providers, including the private sector, in technology transfer; o Encourage the organization of training programmes and workshops by the secretariat in collaboration with the EGTT and relevant national, regional and international organizations for building capacity of experts in the creation of their national technology information databases; o Encourage Parties to provide more information on their technology transfer activities in their national communications.

Iulian Florin VLADU – Adaptation, Technology and Science32 EGTT | Work on networking o The work programme for 2006 included two activities on technology information:  Consider the outcomes of the pilot project on networking between the UNFCCC technology information clearing house (TT:CLEAR) and regional and national technology information centres;  Based upon the outcomes of the activity referred to in subparagraph (a) above, consider ways and means to enhance the capabilities of clean technology centres in developing countries. o Due to delays in finalizing the work these activities will be discussed at the next EGTT meeting

Iulian Florin VLADU – Adaptation, Technology and Science33 EGTT 10 | Recommendations on networking o Expressed concern about the capabilities of the centres for enhancing the dissemination of technology transfer information through the current pilot network and recommended that UNEP and the UNIDO, which have experience in working with clean production centres, and UNDP, which has experience in capacity- building, be involved in this work o Emphasized the need for a client driven process of networking technology centres, in particular building on the gaps and barriers identified in the synthesis report on technology needs identified by non-Annex I Parties o Noted that it will be necessary to assess the results of the pilot project on networking between TT:CLEAR and regional and national technology information centres against the initial objectives, including alternative means of sharing information between these centres before further expansion of the pilot network

Iulian Florin VLADU – Adaptation, Technology and Science34 Synthesis of TNAs | Type of barriers identified by country

Iulian Florin VLADU – Adaptation, Technology and Science35 Synthesis of TNAs | Measures identified to address barriers

Iulian Florin VLADU – Adaptation, Technology and Science36 Synthesis of TNAs | Capacity-building needs

Iulian Florin VLADU – Adaptation, Technology and Science37 THANK YOU